Rochester City Court Judge Leticia Astacio is facing a court hearing two weeks from today, on August 24th, that may determine whether she goes back to jail for violating probation.
Whether she does may depend on whether she accepts a prosecution offer to enter an in-patient alcohol treatment program. Prosecutor Chris Eaggleston says if she doesn’t accept the offer, they’ll push for her to go back to jail for up to a year.
Juge Astacio’s defense attorney, Mark Young, denied all the charges against her, and also asked for a hearing on the accuracy of her alcohol monitoring ankle bracelet. Judge Stephen Aronson rejected that motion, but set a hearing on the evidence it reported. She remains free on probation pending the outcome. Young says he’s discussing the prosecution offer with his client but doesn’t know if she’ll take it.
On the same day Judge Astacio as released from jail last month, a delinquency report was filed by her probation officer stating she failed to activate that SCRAM device. Over the next two days, the device detected that Astacio drank alcohol, hitting one-and-a-half times the legal limit for DWI. Then on July 18, Astacio told told a probation officer that she used a foot cream that contained alcohol. Both drinking and using alcohol-based products are against her probation conditions.
She’s already served 60 days in jail for violating the terms of her conditional discharge on a drunken driving conviction.